CNN
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Caitlin Clark stands alone on the Iowa Hawkeyes’ residence flooring, with 15,000 followers transfixed by the second — and greater than three million viewers watching on tv.
She drains a free throw. Easy. Then one other. The house crowd erupts.
These routine factors earlier this month surpassed the all-time faculty basketball scoring file, for each women and men, launching Clark into the pantheon of the game.
It’s been a season for the ages for Clark, 22, whose expertise has fueled a increase in curiosity within the ladies’s recreation as March Insanity obtained underway this week.
NBA star Steph Curry referred to as her record-breaking efficiency “must-see TV” in an interview with CBS earlier this month.
Viewers apparently agree.
This yr, faculty ladies’s basketball has had certainly one of its finest common seasons in historical past, with common season video games averaging 476,000 viewers on ESPN platforms, the place it has seen a 37% viewership enhance.
The viewers for girls’s faculty basketball has elevated by greater than 60% throughout all nationwide networks, and greater than 48% on video games proven by the community, the place it’s averaging a much bigger viewers than its males’s counterpart, in line with Michael Mulvihill, president of perception and analytics at Fox Sports activities.
Clark – a six-foot senior recognized for each her capturing and passing recreation – has undoubtedly pushed these numbers, stated Jon Lewis, who has tracked sports activities rankings on his web site Sports activities Media Watch since 2006. Lewis in contrast her to Curry and different transcendent stars, comparable to LeBron James and Michael Jordan.
“These are the kind of gamers that, once they’re taking part in, individuals tune in and take note of in a approach that they don’t for different gamers,” he stated.
Clark’s final-season statistics, which helped her high Pete Maravich’s file, additionally bear similarities to Curry’s final yr with Davidson. Clark is averaging 31.9 factors a recreation and 38% from three-point vary, whereas Curry averaged 28.6 factors and 39% from deep.
Whereas Clark is attractive viewers, ladies’s faculty basketball is experiencing development that may’t solely be defined by “Clarkonomics”– as basketball analyst Debbie Antonelli referred to as it – alone.
The rise in its reputation is coinciding with an general enhance within the prominence of ladies’s sports activities.
That rise is because of improved TV protection – comparable to that includes video games on main networks and in optimum time slots – and the best way that younger feminine athletes have used the platform of Title, Picture and Likeness, or NIL, which has allowed faculty and highschool athletes to earn revenue from sponsorships, amongst different elements.
Iowa and Clark have featured in six of the 10-most seen ladies’s basketball video games this season, all incomes multiple million viewers, in line with information from SportsMediaWatch.
Essentially the most seen recreation this season eclipsed any ladies’s faculty basketball contest since 1999, when a UConn and Tennessee rivalry matchup had 3.88 million common viewers.
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Whereas “mainstream” followers have at all times recognized packages like UConn and Tennessee, extra consideration has been targeted currently on newer stars, stated Melissa Isaacson, an assistant sports activities journalism professor at Northwestern. Notably, final yr’s championship, which averaged practically 10 million viewers, launched the nation to Iowa’s Clark and LSU’s Angel Reese.
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The surge in ladies’s faculty basketball can be because of extra funding in media protection of ladies’s sports activities, stated Lewis.
For instance, this season is simply the third yr through which the NCAA has hooked up the “March Insanity” branding to the ladies’s event.
“Numerous it’s, ‘Hey let’s put these video games on the place individuals can really watch them,’” Lewis stated. “There’s one thing actual occurring within the ladies’s recreation that’s not restricted to Caitlin Clark and is exclusive even amongst ladies’s sports activities.”
And, as of March 19, followers who went to TickPick to get tickets for the Ultimate 4 had bought six occasions as many for the ladies’s remaining than for the boys’s remaining, the vendor stated.
NIL empowers gamers — and their sports activities
School ladies’s basketball gamers are among the many largest gamers out there for Title, Picture and Likeness sponsorships.
School ladies’s basketball gamers are among the many largest gamers out there for Title, Picture and Likeness sponsorships.
NIL is simply in its third yr and soccer gamers make many of the earnings, however feminine basketball gamers are additionally racking in giant sponsorships.
Sponsorships for school ladies’s basketball are projected to succeed in $60 million by the top of the third yr of NIL, in line with information from Opendorse, a platform that arranges model offers between athletes and sponsors.
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Whereas Clark, Reese and different ladies’s stars comparable to Cameron Brink and Paige Bueckers possess large followings, high males’s faculty gamers, comparable to Reed Sheppard, Rob Dillingham and Cody Williams – who could also be destined for this yr’s NBA draft – are seemingly much less well-known.
Utilizing Instagram followers as a barometer, Dillingham has essentially the most of these males’s gamers with 669,000, whereas Clark and Bueckers all have over 1,000,000, with Reese boasting 2.7 million.
“By making these offers doable …[NIL] has shed extra gentle on the people and, by proxy, on their sports activities,” stated Sam Weber, who heads communications at Opendorse.
There was even hypothesis that Clark would possibly keep in faculty quite than coming into the WNBA draft to retain her profitable NIL offers. Bueckers of UConn, for instance, selected to remain for a fifth yr of eligibility granted by the league to gamers affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
One issue driving the hypothesis that Clark would possibly keep in faculty was that WNBA doesn’t have the identical platform as ladies’s faculty basketball.
Whereas Clark and Reese performed for practically 10 million viewers in final yr’s faculty championship, Recreation 4 of the WNBA finals peaked with 1.3 million viewers, averaging 889,000. The total four-game collection averaged 728,000 viewers, in line with information from Sports activities Media Watch
The WNBA has traditionally had a smaller viewers than faculty ladies’s basketball, in line with Lewis. That’s partially as a result of it hasn’t been round as lengthy: By the league’s first season, in 1997, a number of faculty ladies’s packages had already developed sturdy fan bases, Isaacson stated.
However there’s a precedent for school stars bringing giant audiences with them to the WNBA. 5-time Olympic gold medalist, all-time WNBA scoring chief and three-time WNBA champion Diana Taurasi’s first recreation in 2004 was the most-watched recreation on ESPN/ABC, in line with Lewis.
Three-time WNBA champion and two-time gold medalist Candace Parker’s first recreation in 2008 additionally drew giant audiences, Lewis added.
Ticket costs to observe the Indiana Fever – the staff eyeing Clark for its No. 1 decide within the WNBA draft – have greater than doubled.
The crescendo to Clark’s faculty profession might come within the type of a nationwide title. But when that outcome stays elusive, she can have transcended the school recreation — and introduced legions of newly engaged viewers alongside along with her.